M ONT H I N M I NUT ES
RIGHT TO
MONTH IN NUMB3RS
£5bn
A fair deal for social poker
JEFF HYMAN CEO, IDLE GAMES
William Hill CEO Ralph Topping’s prediction of the operator’s value “within three to five years” See news on p18
One of the biggest and most persistent customer complaints about freeplay poker is that the game is ‘rigged’. You need only a cursory review of customer comments in the iTunes or Google Play app stores to see this. The most common comment is that the deals of cards are not truly random, and there’s a good reason for this concern. If an unscrupulous company wanted to maximise pro?ts, a very simple (and unfortunately legal) strategy is to simply alter the logic or algorithm of how cards are dealt. Make no mistake, running out of chips or ‘busting out’ is the single largest driver for monetisation in freeplay poker. It would surprise no one to learn that some social and mobile casino operators are at worst ’cheating’ and at best misleading customers. In regulated real-money poker, the only acceptable methodology for ‘dealing cards’ is via a random number generator. Furthermore, any number generator must be certi?ed by independent third parties. We ?nd it troubling there is not a single operator of another freeplay social or mobile poker game who thinks it necessary to get their number generators certi?ed. Make no mistake, there is very ‘real-money’ in the freeplay space (around 25% of the Top 25 grossing games on iTunes and Google Play are freeplay casino games). Given the number of freeplay games, their revenues, and the fact social casino companies are moving into realmoney gaming, the need to protect the consumer is timely and needed. The whole social casino industry is tainted by the consumers’ valid concerns and this only causes the consumer to become increasingly suspicious of all social and mobile casino games.
US$4m
The net Q1 profit posted by Zynga, compared to losses of $85m in Q1 2012 See news on p18
60%
Proportion of online sportsbook profits now generated by Betfred’s mobile division See feature on p42
ROYAL RUMBLE
The Queen’s Speech shook up the egaming sector with the introduction of a new Gambling Bill in the UK that will precede a new point of consumption tax
Ultimate Poker become the first legal, real-money poker site in the US when it launched in April See news on p16
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FAMILY TREE
BETCLIC EVEREST
Betclic Everest has seen a significant restructure during the past 18 months, culminating in the appointment of the French operator’s third CEO in this period, Isabelle Andres (see profile on p48)
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